Intercultural Competences (ICB) PDF documents Summary

ICB – PDF-Summary

National Cultures and Corporate Cultures – Trompenaars

 the organization is a subjective construct and its employees will give meaning to
their environment based on their own particular cultural programming

Different corporate cultures

Org. culture is shaped not only by technologies + markets, but by the cultural
preferences of leaders + employees

3 aspects important for determining corporate culture:
1) General relationship between employees + their organization
2) Vertical/hierarchical system of authority (defining superiors/subordinates)
3) General views of employees about organization’s destiny, purpose + goals and
their places in this

2 dimensions: equality – hierarchy
orientation to the person – orientation to the task

 definition of 4 types of corporate cultures, which vary considerably in how they
think + learn, how they change + how they motivate, reward + resolve conflicts

(1) family culture, (2) Eiffel Tower, (3) Guided Missile, (4) Incubator

The Family Culture – person oriented
Hierarchical/Person

 personal, with close face-to-face relationships, but also hierarchical
 “father” with experience + authority, greatly exceeding his “children”
 Power-oriented corporate culture
 Tend to be high context
 Excluding strangers (without necessarily wishing to do so)
 Communication in codes that only members understand
 Relationships tend to be diffuse
 Power and differential status are seen as “natural”
 Authority in the family models is unchallengeable  status ascribed
 Difficulty with project group organization or matrix-type authority structures
 Leader needs employee’s trust, faith & knowledge
 Members, enjoying their relationships, may be motivated more by praise and
appreciation than by money
 Negative feedback is indirect
 Many family cultures are from nations which industrialized late

 The family model gives low priority to efficiency (doing things right) but high
priority to effectiveness (doing the right things)

,The Eiffel Tower Culture – role oriented
Hierarchical/Task

 Bureaucratic division of labor with various roles and functions prescribed in
advance
 Consists of “normal” employees, supervisors, managers, etc.  hierarchy
 Each role at each level is described, rated for its difficulty complexity, and
responsibility, and has a salary attracted to it
 Boss’s role is to instruct and you obey, purpose of corporation is conveyed
through him
 Boss in the Eiffel Tower Culture is only incidentally a person – essentially he or
she is a role
 Relationships are specific and status ascribed
 Careers are much assisted by professional qualifications
 Learning = accumulating the skills necessary to fit a role and hopefully the
additional skills to qualify for higher positions
 Change = effected through changing rules
 in theory, constant rule-change would be necessary, but it would in practice
bewilder employees, lower moral, and obscure the distinction between rules &
deviations
 would be immensely complex + time-consuming
 Employees are ideally precise and meticulous
 Duty is an important concept
 Conflicts = seen as irrational, pathologies of orderly procedure, offences
against efficiency
 Criticism/Complaints  dealt with through even ore rules and fact-finding
procedures

The Guided Missile Culture – project oriented
Egalitarian/Task

 Egalitarian = belief that everyone is equal & should have equal rights
 Oriented to tasks, typically undertaken by teams or project groups
 Must do “whatever it takes” to complete a task, and what is needed is often
unclear and may have to be discovered
 Frequently draw on professionals and are cross-disciplinary
 Expensive, because professionals are expensive
 Temporary groups
 Ultimate criteria of human value = how you perform and to what extend you
contribute to the jointly desired outcome
 Steering is corrective + conservative, ot as open to new ends as to new
means
 Learning = “getting on” with people, breaking ice quickly
 Change comes quickly, high turnover rate
 Loyalties to professions and projects are greater than loyalties to the company
 Motivations tend to be intrinsic – team members get enthusiastic, identify with
and struggle toward final product

,  Culture tends to be individualistic
 Management by objectives & people are paid by performance

The Incubator Culture – fulfilment oriented
Equalitarian/Person

 Organizations are secondary to fulfilment of individuals, existence precedes
organizations
 Purpose: to free individuals from routine to more creative activities and to
minimize time spend on self-maintenance
 Almost no structure, the structure it does have is for personal convenience
 Roles are crucial, are there to confirm, criticize, develop, find resources for
and help to complete the innovative product or service
 Minimal hierarchy
 Environment of intense emotional commitment
 Commitment to world-changing, society-redeeming nature of work
 Limited in size  small innovative companies
 All participants are on the same wavelength, empathically searching together
for a solution to shared problem
 Motivation: is wholehearted, intrinsic + intense
 Little concern for personal security and few wish to profit or have power apart
from the unfolding creative process
 Leadership is achieved, not ascribed
 Follow those whose progress most impresses you and whose ideas work
 Conflict is resolved either b splitting up or by trying the proposed alternative to
see which works best